Dwelling Place

Guest (Male): Today, on the Dwelling Place.

Al Pittman: You came in this morning, maybe you don't know, you haven't given your life to Jesus Christ. You feel like, man, I'm dead inside, I'm looking for something, I thought I might try church this morning or whatever. Listen, God's word, his rebuke of the devil, God can give you life where there is death.

Maybe you came in and you feel like my marriage is falling apart. Things are decomposing spiritually. Spiritual decomposition ceases when God rebukes the devil in that situation when you turn your life over to Jesus Christ. Lazarus had no choice but to come out of the tomb when Jesus called him out. Why is that? Because God's choice is always greater than the voice of condemnation against you in Christ.

Guest (Male): Thank you for listening to the Dwelling Place, a radio ministry from Pastor Al Pittman of Al Pittman Ministries. The purpose of this radio program is to encourage you, strengthen your walk with the Lord, and grow. To support this program financially or learn more about the ministry, visit us online at alpittmanministries.org. Your donations keep this radio program going. Thank you for partnering with us. Today, we hear part two of "The Lord Stood By" from Zechariah Chapter 3, verses 1 through 7. Now, here's Pastor Al.

Al Pittman: The Lord stands for you. Satan, when he stands, he always stands to oppose you, to keep you from your divine destiny in Christ. Every one of us in here has a divine destiny in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. You are not just here to be here or to be a spectator, but to be a participant in our Father's business.

Remember when Jesus got lost? He didn't get lost, his parents did. They lost sight of Jesus in Jerusalem when he was 13 years old. They went to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover and they lost sight of Jesus and didn't know where he was. They went back looking for him and they found him in the temple teaching. They wanted to rebuke him, but he said to his stepfather, Joseph, and his mother, Mary, "Did you not know that I would be about my Father's business?"

Are we about our Father's business? We have a purpose. You have a purpose in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I don't care what your state is, what your health is like, or anything else. God has a divine purpose for you to fulfill. I want you to notice that the devil is standing there at Joshua's right hand. The right hand is supposed to be the place of a protector.

It's interesting to me that people today are so busy and foolishly promoting godlessness in our society. They want to operate without God being involved in their business, in their lives, or anything else. They are just promoting godlessness, which is the devil's agenda. They think as if the devil is their protector when in reality, the devil has come only to punish you.

The Bible says his mandate, his modus operandi for each and every one of our lives, is to kill and to steal and to destroy your life. That's what the devil is. If the devil is standing there with you, he's standing there to destroy you. He's not your protector; he's there to punish you. The devil is accurately described in scripture as the accuser of the brethren.

For those who are in Jesus Christ, he's always bringing accusations against you. I've heard people say of Charlie Kirk that he was a racist and all this. I've listened to a lot of his videos and different things. The man was not a racist; he was speaking truth and love. Yet, a lot of people want to label him with that label, call him a racist so they won't have to listen to him and so they're intolerant against his teaching and what he was promoting.

Somehow God got a hold of this young man's mind and he decided to take Charlie Kirk out. But you know what? You can't keep a good man down, and the gates of hell will not prevail against God's church. Jesus will build his church regardless. But the devil, that's his modus operandi. He's been doing it all the time and no matter what the devil does, God takes it and uses it for his own glory, even what the devil meant for evil.

The devil is the accuser of the brethren. He's always accusing people. That's why people can't get along because the devil's always accusing and we listen to the accuser. Don't listen to him. There is an old song they used to sing, "Don't let the devil ride." If you let him ride, he's going to want to drive. Don't let him be your friend.

You think he talked you into having an attitude and "I'm going to cuss somebody out" and all this kind of stuff. That's the devil, allowing the devil to ride. "Oh, Pastor, I'm just going to let him ride a couple blocks. I'll repent on Saturday night before I go to church on Sunday." No, don't let him ride because he will want to drive and he will drive your life straight into hell.

If you're a believer, I'm not saying you're going to hell, but he will destroy your witness. He will destroy your life. So in response to the devil's accusations against Joshua, the Lord rebukes the devil. I love that. The Lord says, "The Lord, that is me, I, devil, am rebuking you." I want you to understand where the rebuke is coming from. It's coming from the Lord.

The Lord said, "I'm rebuking you. You got an issue? You deal with me." That's our God. The Lord rebukes you, Satan. And so it is with you and your life if you are in Jesus Christ. If you're in Christ, the Bible says you're the righteousness of God. He who knew no sin, that's Jesus, became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

When God looks at you, he sees the righteousness of his son because you put your faith fully in Jesus Christ. So God's defense against the devil's accusations is that he rebukes him in your life. In essence, the Lord is saying this to the devil when the devil tries to bring accusations against those who are in Jesus Christ or the devil tries to bring accusations against God's people, against the church. The Lord could be saying this to the devil, and that is simply: How dare you try to redefine what is mine?

Did you hear that? When the devil comes and tries to tell you that you're this and that and the other, God would say, "How dare you try to redefine what belongs to me?" This is what he's saying in regards to Joshua, the high priest. Today we see the devil's attempt to redefine things in our society. Do we not? We see the devil trying to redefine sexuality. There are more than two genders; there's 15, 20, 30, however many you want.

That's a lie from the pit of hell. God created two genders, male and female, he created them. And when you try to defy God's law, defy his institutions, you're going to wreck yourself. Check yourself before you wreck yourself because that isn't going to change. You can put a change in it and try to get operations and everything else; you cannot change the rule of God's word.

He created two genders, male and female. They try to redefine marriage. No, it's between a man and a woman. It's not between a man and two other women or one woman and two men and all this kind of stuff. What you're doing is you're coming against God's ordained authority and institutions. Here is the reality: Rebellion against what God has ordained cannot be sustained by the perverted wisdom of mankind.

God says in his word he changes not. He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. If it was sin yesterday, it's sin today and it will be sin tomorrow. You say, "Oh no, Pastor, you're not loving. You've got to love people." But love without the truth is a lie. I don't care how you put it. "I don't want to hurt them, I want to just love them." Love without the truth is a lie.

If you're going along with your children and you're not telling them the truth, and they're coming home saying, "I'm not a boy anymore, I'm a girl," you need to lovingly say, "You're wrong." You don't go along with it and say, "Oh, it's all right" because "I'm just loving them." No, you're hating them because love without the truth is a lie.

Whatever mankind says cannot be sustained by their perverted wisdom. God's word will not change and he changes not. When the devil drags us into God's court, if you will, to condemn us, he is in fact trying to redefine us. He is in fact trying to redefine what God has already ordained, redefine God's purpose for us.

He also, when he drags us into the court of God's court as he has Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, the devil forgets to read the sign above the entrance to the court of the Lord. What does that sign say? Romans 8:1: "There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." So devil, you're just wasting your time. There's no condemnation for you if you're in Christ Jesus. He's just wasting his time.

The authority of God's rebuke transforms death into life. You came in this morning, maybe you don't know, you haven't given your life to Jesus Christ. You feel like, man, I'm dead inside, I'm looking for something, I thought I might try church this morning or whatever. Listen, God's word, his rebuke of the devil, God can give you life where there is death.

Maybe you came in and you feel like my marriage is falling apart. Things are decomposing spiritually. Spiritual decomposition ceases when God rebukes the devil in that situation when you turn your life over to Jesus Christ. Lazarus had no choice but to come out of the tomb when Jesus called him out. Why is that? Because God's choice is always greater than the voice of condemnation against you in Christ.

Aren't you glad the voice that condemned you or is condemning you this very day, that God's choice, he has chosen you in Christ? That his choice is always greater than the voice of condemnation. Verse two tells us here in our text, the latter part, that the Lord who has chosen Jerusalem, rebuke you.

Is this not a brand plucked from the fire? Jerusalem, why Jerusalem? Again, I remind you: Israel, Jerusalem had committed sin against God and was caught up in idolatry. They practiced idolatry in Jerusalem in the temple. That's why God judged them and allowed the Babylonians to conquer them and to destroy the temple, that first glorious temple of Solomon.

After 70 years of captivity, they come back to rebuild this second temple, but Jerusalem was devastated at this time. And yet, because God had chosen it, God had not forgotten it. Now, why did God choose Jerusalem? Because Jerusalem would be the place where Jesus would make atonement for the sins of the world on the cross. That's why he had chosen Jerusalem.

By the way, Hamas and Hezbollah and everybody else that wants to destroy Jerusalem, destroy Israel, God has still chosen Jerusalem to this day. God is a God of promise. And yet, because God had chosen the city of Jerusalem, the devil was against Jerusalem. Here we really see the nature of God because Jerusalem's devastated, right? The temple is a heap of ruins.

God always chooses devastated things. He said, "Did I not choose? Have I not chosen Jerusalem?" But Jerusalem's devastated; who wants Jerusalem? God did. It reminds us of the fact that in Christ, God has chosen us. He has chosen lives beyond human repair, chosen lives that people have given up on, people whose lives are just a pile of rubble and ruin.

Yet God still chooses us. And why does he do it? He does it for his glory because he loves us. First Corinthians Chapter 1, verses 27 to 29 says, "But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty, and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen. And the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in his presence."

There'll be nobody getting a trophy in heaven because it's only by grace and by mercy that we've been saved. Every one of us, we were foolish and weak and we were unable to save ourselves. The devil comes and tells you that you're not good enough, you're not good-looking enough, you're not successful enough, you're not smart enough, you're not educated enough. You hear that all the time, but God says you are.

You are my child. You are more than a conqueror through Jesus Christ who loves you. That's what you are in Jesus Christ. He's chosen us so that we might magnify and glorify his name so that what God does in our lives, we can't take the credit for. We have to say it was Jesus. People ask my wife and I many times, you know, we've been telling them that we've been married 50 years, "What's your secret?" First thing coming out of our mouth, we say it almost simultaneously: Jesus.

Nobody can take the credit for Pastor Al and Norma being together for 50 years but Jesus Christ because we did everything we could to mess it up. Nobody gets the glory but Jesus Christ. Nobody gets the glory in this church because God established this church and God will never abandon his church.

It says here in verse two, the latter part, "Is this not the firebrand plucked from the fire?" I want you to notice this because Jerusalem had been plucked from the fire of God's discipline. That's a whole other thing. Because there's one thing to be accused by the devil for things you didn't do, but it's another thing to be accused by the devil and he has the video of you doing it.

And yet, still God says, "I've chosen them." They might be a mess, but they're my mess. God had chosen Joshua the high priest and Jerusalem. The good news is God's chastening and discipline never cancels his choice, which is you. And all those who are in Christ are chosen in Christ, chosen to be children of God.

We come to Christ by faith. Listen to what the Bible says about God's chastening in Hebrews Chapter 12, verses 5 and 6: "And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons." Don't forget this exhortation because you get bummed out. Here's the reality: God will take you to the woodshed.

I heard a guy talking the other day saying the Bible doesn't promote corporal punishment and things like that. God isn't saying beat your kids to death. He said not spare the rod. I think that still means you've got to spank them sometimes. God disciplines us, but he does it because he loves us.

He says, "Don't forget this exhortation that he's doing it because he loves us." He goes on to say in Hebrews Chapter 12, "My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by him, for whom the Lord loves he chastens, and scourges every son whom he receives." If God disciplines us, that means that he loves us.

My father, I knew he loved me. Oh, he loved me because he would beat my behind. A lot of love. He would spank me, and he wanted me to do the right thing. I remember one time he told me, "Son, if you ever get in trouble, I don't care if you murder somebody, don't let me read about it in the paper. You come tell me."

I got arrested one time with a bunch of knuckleheads. We were down in the police station and my dad was the only father to come down to get me. All the other dads didn't show up. So I knew he loved me. I can't tell you what he said to me at the police station, but I knew he loved me.

But I thought about that. If my dad could love me that much, how much more does God love me? If you, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask? How much more will the Heavenly Father give good things to those who ask? So what makes you think you being God's child that somehow he stopped loving you?

You may have been in trouble, but he still loves you. He will discipline you. He'll correct us, it's because he loves us. Zechariah Chapter 3, verses 4 and 5 says, "Then he answered and spoke to those who stood before him, saying, 'Take away the filthy garments.'" God is speaking here. He says, "Take away the filthy garments from him."

And to him he said, "See, I have removed your iniquity." He's talking to Joshua the high priest. "I removed your iniquity from you and I will clothe you with rich robes." And Zechariah said, "Let them put a clean turban on his head." So they put a clean turban on his head and they put the clothes on him and the angel of the Lord stood by.

From rags to riches. Maybe you walked in here with rags on, filthy garments of condemnation and shame. God is saying, "I want to exchange that filthy garment that you have for a royal robe, a rich robe, a robe of grace, and a robe of mercy." From rags to riches. You don't have to walk out the same way you walked in. God has taken away the iniquity, the filthy garments of our sin, and has replaced them with rich robes of salvation through faith in Christ.

Joshua is restored to his rightful place. He's the high priest. He's restored to his rightful place, and God wants to restore us through faith in Jesus Christ, number one to our rightful place, and that is to be in fellowship with him without condemnation as sons and daughters of God. That's what you were created for. That's your rightful place.

For those believers who have fallen away or you've done something shameful and you dare not stand before God, I want you to stand before God that he might remove your iniquity. The Bible says if we confess our sin, he is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Notice Zechariah confirms God's choice. Verse 5, Zechariah says, "Then I said..."